Calendar

Those of us who write for and love print indulge in a fair amount of gallows' humor these days. We chuckle about being dinosaurs, about how we'll soon be out of work (my Plan B--the Chanel counter at Nordstrom, save me a place, ladies!), about how every job today requires not just excellent writing skills, but also the ability to work with the Adobe CreativeSuite, handle social media, understand content management systems, and gee, wouldn't it be nice if you could take great photos and shoot video.

Makes the ability to write a good feature story seem almost quaint. Like knitting.

It's not like I'm one of the dusty ones who's clinging to her OED like it's a life raft in a turbulet sea. I'm hep. I stole Mr. Nake-id's iPad and made it my own. I read ebooks (expanding type for aging eyes!). I have a personal brand (that and $4 will get me an almond-milk latte).

It's like we're on the Titanic, and we've already seen the movie. Say "hello" to the music industry, people, that iceberg has our name on it, too.

I guess in the meantime, we should ask the orchestra to play faster, and give thanks to editors who see us not just as a means to an end, but also as people who respond to thank yous, fun assignments and the occasional goody or two. We're all in this boat together. And, for all your hard work and consideration, I thank you back.

The blocking wires proved to be an epic fail with this curvilinear beauty. Mine just aren't bendy enough to accommodate the curved lines of this piece. So after showing my Color Affection class how to put them in, I promptly took them out again and free blocked the thing.

It's lovely. If I were to do it all again--and I won't--I'd use larger needles, 7s at least, with this sport-weight yarn. And, maybe, color? All-in-all, though, very pleased.

One day she's vegan then poof she's gluten-free. What will that Nake-id girl do next?

(And how 'bout the photo of the brown treacle pictured above. A lovely gluten-free roux made from teff flour, ghee and some leftover bacon-flavored grapeseed oil I bought from a multi-level marketing company.)

So here's the deal: In an ongoing attempt to address some minor but persistent health issues--high cholesterol and some mood challenges--the Ayurvedic Doc asked whether I'd be willing to try going GF for a month.

Oh, sure. So off I trot to the Internets where it appears gluten causes everything from, um, gas and bloating to full-on cancer. This protein, this component of the staff of life, ritualized in the Abrahamic traditions, can not only wreak havoc in your upper and lower plumbing it can foul your brain.

Most of the time when teaching, the blocking conversation goes like this: Euclan. Washer. Soak. Spin out. Dry flat. Done.

If we get to blocking in a project class--and often we don't--it's given short shrift in the rush to teach mattress stitch, weave in ends or kitchener. For the Color Affection class, because of the timing on my shawl, I'm going to haul the blocking wires, pins, towels and wool wash to class and demonstrate that in spite of the dreary process that is pinning out a shawl, you get amply rewarded with a beautiful finished project.

Oh, yes. And for your viewing pleasure another amateur photo of shawl and cat feet.

I had a yoga teacher once who said that people who are good with words have poor spatial awareness. It's a phrase that continues to comfort whenever a yoga teacher gives an instruction like, "Place your right elbow on your left knee," and I'm in a knot trying to figure out which knee to adress.

Photography feels that way, and so for years, impatient with the-exposure-depth-of-field-light-source physicality of it all, I've mostly pointed and clicked and hoped for good images, leaving the science and expensive hardware to those with more concrete minds.

I haven't bought a camera since 1994, a 35mm automatic Olympus that used film. Parsimonious by nature unless we're talking yarn, digital photographic equipment has always been down on the priority list with cell phones and cable television. These pages have been populated with photos taken with hand-me-downs, cast-offs and a lucky freebie. Until today.

Last week, I bought an entry-level DSLR, a little Canon EOS Rebel T3i--a good deal at Costco with two lenses, bag, cords, memory card and instructional DVD, which I have to stop every two minutes for 15 minutes of camera fiddling. There's a lot to learn--the viewfinder itself displays 18 bits of information, a hieroglypic of flash and exposure icons, highlight tone priority, red-eye reduction and on and on. Dazzling, really.

And, the medium itself, so rich, so complex, you can see why it's an art.

It's going to take awhile, but I can already tell by looking in the viewfinder of this nice tool that there's a lot to see.

I took off my prima donna tap shoes years ago. Haven't you noticed the comfort walkers? The willingness to roll up sleeves and write just about anything? For Pete's sake, I've worked for lawyers. How low can you go?

But, no. You felt I needed the mirror shoved front and center yet again and gave me a career-limiting uh-oh upon which to reflect. You had me sobbing on a public toliet, thinking, "I was a high-school valedictorian, how did my career devolve to this!?"

And reflect I have. Of course, we all need the lesson of slowing down and paying closer attention, but if we focus too closely on the weeds, we'll miss the forest and the wild things that come to us in dreams. To work in fear of mistakes is to work in fear. And is that any way to foster invention, new thinking and creativity?

It's all about balance, isn't it? To color outside the lines may yield something fresh and interesting, but is it usable? Likewise to put forth dull, perfectly wrought copy gets the job done, but will anybody read?

Hard to imagine in this day and age that teachers ever made children wear dunce caps. it strikes the contemporary viewer as cruel, doesn't it? Do we need to wear the cone of shame in order to find that point where inspiration and perfection come together in excellence?

Universe, I think there's a bigger message here but not quite sure I'm getting it. Or is it just about dotting i's and crossing t's?